If Romney Wins

2013: Democrats Win VA Governorship and Christie loses to a 2nd tier candidate in a major upset(he will suffer more than most from an unpopular Romney)

2014: Democrats make house gains but the real massacre is in the states. Democrats pick up governorships in South Carolina, Michigan, Ohio(every statewide office), Arizona, Florida, Pennsylvania and in upsets hold Illinois and Arkansas.

Racine race is turning into a mess.  To close to call.  Irregularities suspected in Racine.  Recount likely. 

Says who?

We know from 2010 and 1998 where undecideds in California go. A 49-44 Democratic lead is really a 53-43 lead. And a 50-39 lead from PPIC will probably end up around 59-39

There is far far too much whining about poll weightings this year. Here is a dirty little secret - the aggregate of polling, regardless of weighting, has generally been right,. These same complaints have existed in every cycle, been brought up consistently by the side convinced they were losing, and then on election day, most polls were, well pretty good with the exceptions of oddities like Nevada Senate 2010.

Whining about cross-tabs is pointless, and will be revealed in November as largely baseless. For some reason, and I have seen this since 2000, polls that are D+15 in internals tend to produce results that are pretty damn close to electorates that tell exit pollsters they are D+4.

I hope you and I both can remember to revisit this in November. I'm convinced that SurveyUSA will not be polling 15% more Democrats in their final NC poll before the election. I'm also convinced PPP won't be polling 13% more Democrats in their final NC poll before the election.

I just remember seeing this in 2008 and 2004, when there were some absurd D heavy samples(approaching D+20 or more nationally). I think part of it is racial block voting, but for some reason Democrats are less coherent, independents more liberal, and republicans more or less the same in polls compared with real life.

To be honest, I would expect NC to be about 52-48 today, which this poll would more or less support if you assume the other crosstabs are absurd, others are 4% too high, AAs are too low(they were 23% in 2008 and they are up as a % of registered voters), and whites slightly too low.

There is far far too much whining about poll weightings this year. Here is a dirty little secret - the aggregate of polling, regardless of weighting, has generally been right,. These same complaints have existed in every cycle, been brought up consistently by the side convinced they were losing, and then on election day, most polls were, well pretty good with the exceptions of oddities like Nevada Senate 2010.

Whining about cross-tabs is pointless, and will be revealed in November as largely baseless. For some reason, and I have seen this since 2000, polls that are D+15 in internals tend to produce results that are pretty damn close to electorates that tell exit pollsters they are D+4.

Unless we have a huge surprise, there are going to be new elections by June 17.

Any idea what might happen then?

Pasok crashes enough for SYRIZA to come first?

With 31.52% reporting:

ND:         112   20,34 %
SYRIZA:    48   15,73 %
PASOK:    43    14,14 %
ANEL:       32   10,31 %
KKE:         26    8,42 %
XA:           21    6,80 %
DIMAR:     18    6,00 %
LAOS:               2,88 %
Greens:            2,79 %
DISY:                2,57 %

And looking at whats out, and the trend for the ND lead to shrink as more comes in, it will probably close a bit more.

It's not really getting closer anymore either.

Nothing coming in from Athens. Whats out will be Syriza heavy. Not enough for the lead but a brief look at whats out points to about a 2% swing.

Massive strategic voting. Will this mean a more left-leaning PC government, or will they move right from the scare?

Santorum's lead in OH is expanding - it is a vote short of 12,000 now. Can be overcome, but it is getting big.

Oh Ohio, You're teasing us aren't you?

Most likely it is, because Cleveland and Cincinnati are still at 0% reporting and Columbus is only at 14% reporting.

Its unclear if those numbers are right or Representative. Erie jumped from 22% to 100% with zero additional votes added.

Probably about the same margin as Erhlich lost by in 2010. Something like 49-43-6.

Worth noting that given the dominance of the gay marriage issue at the time, its by no means certain that Romney would have been able to outspend his opponents.

Not as bad as I predicted... maybe yesterday was a bad sample:

Romney 31%
Gingrich 25% (-1)
Santorum 17% (+1)
Paul 12% (+1)

Really weak surge. And here comes the bad news cycle on poor people, indexing minimum wage.

Romney is probably going to get over 40%.

I think it would be the story of the night if he didn't.

Just watching the highlight, Newt's momentum was stopped, by Santorum.

A default Romney win.

Won't be the narrative though. The media wants a race, so between Marrianne, the Polls out tonight, Gingrich's outburst, and taxes there will be little to no mention of Santorum for those who didn't watch.

Yeah... Obama losing CA, NY and MA?! The circumstances that bring that about are not just far-fetched... but frankly fricking terrifying.

then you haven't been paying attention to the news:  Iran's Al Qods Brigades are positioned to attack oil installations in Kuwait and Saudi Arabia, as well as shut down the Striat of Hormuz, if conflict breaks out (and Obama probably isn't the type to launch a preemptive full-fledge strike to take out that Iranian capability).

Now, chances of conflict between Iran and Israel (or the US) in 2012 may only be 10-25%...but 10-25% is NOT far fetched.

I think there is a real question whether it is demographically possible for a Democrat to lose Massachusetts. Increasingly the state is dominated by minorities, and latte whites, and neither group swings at all. Latte whites in places like Brookline/Lexington blame the GOP  for the current economic problems, get their news from MSNBC, and would still blame the Tea Party and GOP in the vent of all of those events occurring. You are dealing with the Democratic version of those southern exurban voters.

Its also unclear if the minority/high-income white coalition in New York or California is capable of collapse, given the unwillingness of minorities to vote Republican, and the substantial insulation those at the top have from the economy.

Basically unless the GOP is making massive inroads in culturally left-wing voters of the type who believe Gay Marriage = Civil Rights movement and who support the Occupy Movement, or it starts winning over blacks/Puarto Ricans its not winning those states under any circumstances.

Australia has a GDP per capita about 40% higher than the US.

What we see is almost Hitlerian.

...What?

I know that when I think Hitler, I think mediocre but stable approval ratings.

Hitler was actually popular in the 1930's.

I tend to disagree to that statement. The time he "took" office was accompanied by large riots and people fleeing the country, despite the polling probably not being at todays standards.

Anyways, I don't think this has anything to do with the actual topic.

Polls that came out from the Goebbels headquarters should be subject to a ton of salt.

But I think it was true that the public opinion during the first few years of Hitler was very favorable towards him, because of the reduction of unemployment.

People were happy the "political crisis" was settled, though some might well have preferred a different settlement. No one though wanted to go back to the risk of civil war or a communist takeover.

I really think that any Romney collapse has been reversed by these stupid Bain attacks by Gingrich. As a consequence, i expect him to over-perform and the Conservatives to crash.

Romney 41%
Huntsman 19%
Paul    17%
Santorum 10%
Gingrich     8%

How?

Because they are dominating coverage, and the way they are being covered is "Are they an attack on capitalism or not" not "Is Romney a shady businessman". They are doing far more damage to Perry and Gingrich, and by doing so they are giving conservatives an excuse to make their peace with Romney's nomination.

That said, I don't think they will have an effect on Paul's voters, and I dare say the first debate this weekend did a lot of damage to Romney vis-e-ve Hunstman because those social issue questions did matter.

I really think that any Romney collapse has been reversed by these stupid Bain attacks by Gingrich. As a consequence, i expect him to over-perform and the Conservatives to crash.

Romney 41%
Huntsman 19%
Paul    17%
Santorum 10%
Gingrich     8%

Uhm, that second link you posted makes an elaborate case for the new boundaries being extremely biased towards the right? Also, I apppearantly recall reading somewhere that under the new boundaries Fidesz could lose an election 40-52 and still walk away with a majority of seats. Sounds quite fair to me.


I can understand you wanting to score some cheap points on Krugman, just try not to do it on the back of the half of Hungarians who don't want to live in some sort of pathetic parody on a fascist banana republic. Deal?

The piece is disingenous because its claims for bias are based on how much better the new boundaries are vis-e-ve the old ones, arguing that because the right gains its biased. its like claiming new lines in Britain under which the Tories would have won 50 more seats in 2010 would be biased towards the Tories. Compared to the status quo yes, but it would bring them more or less into line with fairness.

In the case of the 40-52 figure, its calculated by assuming that all the small parties that win support through the regional seats end up with their votes wasted - ie. the plan does discriminate against all the 3-7% parties that tend to ally with the Socialists, but if you assume they will actually behave differently and form joint lists a lot of that disappears.

Again, the change in single member constituencies based on the 2006 results are to go from 68-98 Fidesz to 96-97 Fidesz when Fidesz in fact won 42-40 in the popular vote. Thats far closer.

Looking at the new political system, Krugman is on crack.

Th existing political lines favored the Left massively. Fidesz won 42% of the single-seat vote in 2006 compared to 40.3% for the Socialists, but only won 68 seats as opposed to 98 for the Socialists. Under the new lines Fidesz would win 96 as opposed to 97 for the Socialists.

Claiming that the new maps are unfair because they would change the results of elections Fidesz actually won more votes in is absurd.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hungarian_parliamentary_election,_2006
http://lapa.princeton.edu/hosteddocs/hungary/Beyond%20democracy%20-%2027%20Nov%202011.pdf

Yes.  It's slightly friendlier to Heck now, but Dems still have a registration advantage there.

Barely. And that might not even be true by election day.

http://www.clarkcountynv.gov/Depts/election/Documents/Reports/RegStatsDist_Active.pdf



The old district 3 had a Democratic registration advantage of about 25000 votes.

Meaningless numbers. Inactive in Nevada means you skipped a single general election. Anyone who voted in 2008 and not in 2010 is an "inactive" voter.

To point out the obvious/what everyone else is thinking, etc...

J.J., the reason why 'Weimar' was used as the title for the thread was almost certainly because the name has a certain resonance in this sort of context. Whereas, 'Horthy' doesn't mean much to anyone these days (if it ever meant much at all) and, anyway, is only arguably more 'relevant' because of geography.

It is very close to a repeat of the late 1930's Hungary, in terms of party domination.  Weimar was situation where there was polarization and center finally sided with the extreme right, against the extreme left.

The title is as good as "Reductio ad Hitlerum" would be.  "Hugary slipping toward Fascism," might have been a lot better. 

I think there are parallels between the government in the 1930's and today's Hungarian political situation.  And I would call the Hungarian government of the 1930's Fascist, though not Nazi.

Austria is almost certainly the best example. There the Christian Social and Social Democratic parties traded power. The Christian Social party was moderate and Dolfuss had a moderate reputation, but when the SDs refused to play ball in 1932 he had to go to the non-Nazi fascists in the Heimwehr. He then became a prisoner of them, and eventually of Mussolini.

In effect you a had a normal center-right party, which moved into an unwanted coalition with the far-right - with the real blaming going to an electorate that was running rapidly to the right.

Fidesz = Christian Social
Socialists = Social Democrats but weaker and more corrupt

Update: MA moves to Slight R, OH and FL move to Lean D.

MA should not be more than toss-up, and likely lean D. Most insiders here think Brown is in serious trouble. His favorables are tanking, he is stuck in the low 40s, and the Presidential race is developing in exactly the worst possible direction for him(toss-up to lean R). I would not put his odds of victory personally above about 20%.

[3/4ths majority]

If Gingrich is the nominee, I could easily see enough seats shifting in New Hampshire for Democrats to retake control.  Also, dont count out a shift in the Michigan House, where there have been some wild swings in the past.  The Wisconsin Senate map actually isnt that bad for Democrats.  If they win control in the early 2012 recalls, they will probably keep it.  It mostly shored up GOP incumbents like Alberta Darling.  Dems will probably gain seats in the Wisconsin House, but not control. 

You know that the Republicans have a 3/4ths majority in NH, right?  It is NH, but that still takes one heck of a wave to overcome.

Republicans will suffer massive losses in the State House. The current GOP legislative leadership is actually more unpopular than the Democrats were and massively over extended. Whether they lose control is another matter.

I think the most likely outcome is a loss of around 70 or so seats, for about a 221-179 margin, but with divided control a la 2005-2007.

The senate should be fine.

In Maine the GOP will lose the House, but with Romney they should hold the Senate.

What do you think the future of gay marriage is in NH?  Repeal would get a majority in the legislature right now, but there are probably enough libertarian types to sustain Lynch's veto in the 2012 session.  Do you think the state GOP will put it to a vote for campaigning purposes even if they can't get 2/3rds?  It seems pretty obvious that the State House won't be veto-proof in 2013, so it may be their one chance to push it through.  How do you feel about Democratic odds of either taking the State House or holding the governor's mansion?  Is full GOP control to be expected in 2013?       

The ideal situation for everyone(well for the GOP leadership,  and Gay Marriage Supporters at least) would be to put it on the ballot, since polls show repeal losing by 30 points. Of course that would require a two-thirds vote which would require hard-core anti-gay marriage opponents/or gay marriage supporters to vote for such a compromise, and neither is willing to do so.

Repeal will probably fail to get 2/3rds this year. The big question is next year. If Romney is the nominee(looking less likely) and wins the state(also looking less likely) I can see a scenario where the GOP wins the GOV race 51-49 and ends ups 225-175 and 14-10 or so majorities int he legislature. Then it gets interesting if they can repeal it on a raw majority vote.

Gingrich will likely lose the state by at least 6 points though, and I don't see any of the B and C grade candidates on either side overcoming such a tailwind for Governor.